[Rarebooks] FS: Two Scarce Ward Ritchie Laguna Verde Imprenta Items

[John Howell]

Offered today 2 Laguna Verde Imprenta items printed by Ward Ritchie on an Albion hand press.

CORWIN, Norman Lewis (1910-2011).  Network at Fifty.  (Northridge, CA: Invierno Press, 1979).  8vo.  8 1/2 x 5/38 inches.  [18] pp.  Half-title, 3-color design on the title page, blue and green headpiece at the head of Corwin’s text, printer’s device in green on the colophon; text clean, unmarked.  Cockerell marbled paper over stiff wrappers, paper label on front cover with CBS “eye” logo on front cover; binding square and tight, light shelf wear to extremities.  SIGNED by Norman Corwin, Robert Nathan (who contributed the Foreword), and Ward Ritchie on the colophon.  The SCARCE prospectus, printed on the verso of a slip of Cockerell marbled paper, is loosely laid in.  Near Fine.  
$ 400
LIMITED EDITION of 50 copies printed by Ward Ritchie in Goudy 30 and Centaur types on T. Edmonds paper on an Albion Handpress for the Invierno Press, completed in March 1979.  Ritchie remarks that the text of Network at Fifty “was the radio broadcast that Norman Corwin read over the air on the fiftieth anniversary of the Columbia Broadcasting System.  Robert Nathan wrote an introduction.  I printed it for the Invierno Press.  Each copy was signed by Corwin, Nathan and me.”  Norman Corwin was an American writer, screenwriter, producer, essayist and teacher of journalism and writing.  His earliest and biggest successes were in the writing and directing of radio drama during the 1930s and 1940s.  The principal of the Invierno Press was Carl Haverlin, whose Invierno Press published a total of three books; this, and a book each of Paul Landacre and James Joyce.  Reference: Ritchie: Laguna Verde Imprenta, 1975-1987, wr 14.  

Link to my website: http://www.johnhowellforbooks.com/si/WHQK114-11.html

RITCHIE, Ward (1905-1996).  Jeffers.  Bound dos-a-dos with JEFFERS, Robinson (1887-1962).  Mirrors.  [Laguna Beach, CA: Laguna Verde Imprenta, 1993).  12mo.  6 1/4 x 5 inches.  [29, 1 blank]; [23, 1 blank] pp.  “Jeffers” with a two-color design on the title-page, the text is printed in black on the rectos and the versos are printed with a color swatch and then hand-illustrated with various abstract designs by Davie Dicker (one of Ritchie’s pseudonyms); text clean, unmarked.  Mirrors is printed with a half-title, a facsimile title page from The Smart Set with a blue color swatch within the mirror frame, the text printed in black within typographic borders; text clean, unmarked.  Bound in gilt-stamped black cloth with labels on both front covers with color vignettes matching the respective title pages; binding square and tight.  INSCRIBED by Ward Ritchie to Mel Kavin, “For Mel, in appreciation, for the book, Ward Ritchie.”  Ritchie has also modified the colophon which reads “About fifty copies printed, probably the final book of Laguna Verde due to age and failing vision.  A hodge-podge of paper remnants have been used.  It has been bound by Kater-Crafts.  wr 32.”  Where the printed text reads “About fifty copies” Ritchie has crossed out the “Fifty” and written in ink “40 survived”.  Fine.  
$ 500
LIMITED EDITION of 40 copies printed by Ward Ritchie on a variety of papers available at the press.  Jeffers is an account by Ward Ritchie of Robinson Jeffers’ early academic, writing, and romantic careers, explaining how “‘Mirrors’ first appeared in the March 1913 issue of The Smart Set, a magazine edited by Jeffers’ friend, Willard Huntington Wright.  “Mirrors” is perhaps the only short story that Robinson Jeffers ever wrote.  INSCRIBED by Ritchie to the binder, Mel Kavin.  Ritchie published this little item after the publication of Laguna Verde Imprenta (1987), and may very well be the last thing Ritchie ever printed.  Five copies Worldcat.  wr 32.  

Link to my website: http://www.johnhowellforbooks.com/si/WHQK114-17.html


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Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,


John Howell, ABAA, ILAB, IOBA

info at johnhowellforbooks.com

310 367-9720

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